Starbucks almost named after Moby-Dick doomed ship Peqoud | Daily Mail Online comments It's the largest coffee house in the world, but Starbucks may have had a very different story had one of its founders had his way. Writer Gordon Bowke, who co-founded the company in 1971, originally wanted to name the company Peqoud, after the doomed whaleship in Moby-Dick. Luckily, his business partners settled on the name of the ship's first mate instead. Global: Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 50 countries, including over 11,000 in the U.S. According to Howard Schultz's book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, Mr Bowker suggested the name Pequod to his then-creative partner, Terry Heckler, who responded: 'No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!' RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share After a brainstorming session, Mr Bowker's co-founders, teachers Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl, decided Captain Ahab's first mate Starbuck would be the name of the then-unknown brand.

A classic: Moby-Dick, by American author Herman Melville, was first published in 1851 It was not the only inspiration the entrepreneurs found in the unusual name. It also inspired Starbucks' famed green and white logo, which features a Siren from Greek Mythology. As the story goes, Sirens lured sailors to shipwreck off the coast of an island in the South Pacific, also called Starbuck Island. The company, however, could have gone by many different names with founders so captivated by the Herman Melville classic. Stubb, Flask, Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo, Pip and Fedallah are among the other characters in the story about Captain Ahab's search for a monstrous sperm whale wandering the seas after it destroyed his boat and bit off his leg. Starbucks, it seems, proved a wise choice. The company later changed hands and Mr Schultz became the company's sole owner when he bought out the three founders in 1987. Starbucks went on to become the largest coffee house company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 50 countries, including more than 11,000 in the U.S.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN MOBY-DICK: Moby-Dick, first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville, is peppered with unusual names that could have replaced Starbuck. Its main characters include: Ishmael - The narrator, and a junior member of the crew of the Pequod Captain Ahab - Lost his leg to Moby Dick and is in a search for the monstrous sperm whale Starbuck - The first mate of the Pequod.

A Quaker who believes that Christianity offers a way to interpret the world around him Stubb - The second mate of the Pequod, characterised by his good humour Flask - The third mate of the Pequod with a confrontational attitude that earned him the nickname King-Post Queequeg - Starbuck’s skilled harpooner and Ishmael’s best friend, a former prince drom South Sea island Tashtego - Stubb’s harpooner and a Gay Head Indian Daggoo - Flask’s harpooner Moby Dick Characters | GradeSaver Buy Study Guide Captain Ahab Ahab is the Captain of the Pequod, a grave older man reaching his sixties who has spent nearly forty years as a sailor, only three of which he has spent on dry land (Melville alludes to Ahab as having a wife and son, but their existence seems of little significance to Ahab). The novel is essentially the story of Ahab and his quest to defeat the legendary Sperm Whale Moby Dick, for this whale took Ahab's leg, causing him to use an ivory leg to walk and stand.

Ahab is a dour, imposing man who frightens his crew through his unwavering obsession with defeating Moby Dick and his grand hubris. In many respects Melville portrays Ahab as barely human, barely governed by human mores and conventions and nearly entirely subject to his own obsession with Moby Dick. Melville describes him in mostly alien terms: Ahab is a spectral figure haunting Stubb's dreams and existing in a place away from the living. He is in some ways a machine, unaffected by human appetites and without recognizable emotion. And most importantly, he claims himself a God over the Pequod, but instead he may be a Satanic figure through his somewhat blasphemous quest against the white whale. Ishmael Ishmael is the narrator of the novel, a simple sailor on the Pequod who undertakes the journey because of his affection for the ocean and his need to go sea whenever he feels "hazy about the eyes." As the narrator Ishmael establishes him as somewhat of a cipher and an everyman, and in fact his role in the plot of the novel is inconsequential; his primary task is to observe the conflicts around him.

Nevertheless, Melville does give his narrator several significant character traits, the most important of which is his idealization of the Sperm Whale and his belief in its majesty. Also, it is Ishmael who has the only significant personal relationship in the novel; he becomes a close friend with the pagan harpooner Queequeg and comes to cherish and adore Queequeg to a somewhat improbable level open to great interpretation; Melville even describes their relationship in terms of a marriage. Ishmael is the only survivor of the Pequod's voyage, living to tell the tale of Moby Dick only because he is by chance on a whaling boat when Moby Dick sinks the Pequod and is rescued by a nearby ship. Starbuck Starbuck is the chief mate of the Pequod, a Nantucket native and a Quaker with a thin build and a pragmatic manner. In appearance, Starbuck is quite thin and seems condensed into his most essential characteristics, and his streamlined appearance well suits his attitudes and behavior. Melville portrays Starbuck as both a strong believer in human fallibility and an idealist who believes that these failings may be contained.

Among the characters in Moby Dick, it is only Starbuck who openly opposes Captain Ahab, believing his quest against the great whale to be an impulsive and suicidal folly. However, despite his open misgivings about Ahab and the open hostility between these two characters that culminates when Ahab points his musket at Starbuck, the conflicted Starbuck remains loyal to his captain even when he has the possibility of vanquishing Ahab. If Ahab serves as the protagonist of the novel and Ahab the narrator, Ishmael is the character whom Melville intends as the proxy for the reader: the only character given a gamut of emotions ranging from pity and fear to contempt, Starbuck is Melville's surrogate for an emotional response from his audience. Queequeg Queequeg is a harpooner from New Zealand, the son of a king who renounces the throne in order to travel the world on whaling ships and learn about Christian society. Ishmael meets Queequeg when the two must share a bed at the Spouter Inn in New Bedford before journeying to Nantucket to undertake the journey on the Pequod.

Melville portrays Queequeg as a blend of civilized behavior and savagery. Certainly in his appearance and upbringing he is uncivilized by the standards of the main characters of the novel, yet Melville (through his narrator Ishmael) finds Queequeg to be incredibly noble, courteous and brave. Melville uses Queequeg as a character in perpetual transition: from savagery to civilization, and in the final chapters after he suffers from an illness from which he wills himself recovered, in an uneasy stasis between life and death. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael is the most intimate of the novel, as the two become close companions. Stubb The second mate on the Pequod, Stubb is a Cape Cod native with a happy-go-lucky, carefree nature that tends to mask his true opinions and beliefs. Stubb remains comical even in the face of the imperious Ahab, and he even dares to make a joke at the captain's expense.

Although never serious, Stubb is nevertheless a more than competent whaleman: his easygoing manner allows Stubb to prompt his crew to work without seeming imposing or dictatorial, and it is Stubb who kills the first whale on the Pequod's voyage. Nevertheless, Melville does not portray Stubb as an idealized character; although competent and carefree, Stubb is also the character who suggests that the Pequod robs the Rosebud of its whales to secure their ambergris. Flask The third mate on the ship, Flask plays a much less prominent role than either Starbuck or Stubb. He is a native of Martha's Vineyard with a pugnacious attitude concerning whales. Melville portrays Stubb as a man whose appetites cannot be sated, and in fact in attempting to sate these appetites Flask becomes even more hungry. Pippin He is a young black man and a member of the Pequod crew who replaces one of Stubb's oarsman but becomes incredibly frightened while lowering after a whale and jumps from the boat.

Although Stubb saves him the first time, he warns him that he will not do so if he tries it again, and when he does Pip only survives when another boat saves him. After realizing that the others would allow his death, Pip becomes nearly insane. However, Ahab takes pity on him for his madness and allows him use of his cabin. Fedallah He is one of the "dusky phantoms" that compose Ahab's special whaling crew. The Asiatic and Oriental Fedallah, also called the Parsee, remains a "muffled mystery" to the other characters and represents a sinister figure for the crew of the Pequod; there are even rumors that he is the devil in disguise and wishes to kidnap Ahab. Fedallah has a prophetic dream of hearses twice during the course of the novel, yet both he and Ahab conceive that this means a certain end to Moby Dick. Fedallah dies during the second day of the chase against Moby Dick, when he becomes entangled in the whale line.

Peter Coffin Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud | Moby Dick | Herman Melville | Lit2Go ETC Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud Additional Information Country of Origin: United States of America Source: Melville H. (1851). Moby Dick.London, England: Richard Bently. Readability: Chicago Melville, H. (1851). Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. Moby Dick (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved January 06, 2017, from Melville, Herman. "Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud." Moby Dick. Lit2Go Edition. 1851. Web. < January 06, 2017. Herman Melville, "Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud," Moby Dick, Lit2Go Edition, (1851), accessed January 06, 2017, Next The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser.

You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! “In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” SIR T. BROWNE, V. E. It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea. “I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they would keel up before long.” Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be alongside.

As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colors from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose. Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the first.

In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted whales in general. The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he recognized his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales. “There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye!

I well knew that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no, not in a condemned cell.

And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the quarter-deck. By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red color.

Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de Rose,”- Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship. Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of the inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently explained the whole to him. “A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will do very well; but how like all creation it smells!” Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to the blasted whale; and so talk over it. Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he bawled- “Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that speak English?” “Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be the chief-mate.

“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?” “What whale?” “The White Whale- a Sperm Whale- Moby Dick, have ye seen him? “Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale- no.” “Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.” Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands into a trumpet and shouted- “No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman. He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of bag. “What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?” “I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very much. “But what are you holding yours for?” “Oh, nothing!

It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?” “What in the devil’s name do you want here?” roared the Guernseyman, flying into a sudden passion. “Oh! keep cool- cool? yes, that’s the word! why don’t you pack those whales in ice while you’re working at ‘em? But joking aside, though; do you know, Rose-bud, that it’s all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn’t a gill in his whole carcase.” “I know that well enough; but, d’ye see, the Captain here won’t believe it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But come aboard, and mayhap he’ll believe you, if he won’t me; and so I’ll get out of this dirty scrape.” “Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,” rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented itself.

The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jibbooms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories. Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from the Captain’s round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within. This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain’s round-house (cabinet he called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times.

Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter’s office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the interview. By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin.

He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them. “What shall I say to him first?” said he. “Why,” said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, “you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, though I don’t pretend to be a judge.” “He says, Monsieur,” said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his captain, “that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a blasted whale they had brought alongside.” Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more. “What now?” said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

“Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him carefully, I’m certain that he’s no more fit to command a whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he’s a baboon.” “He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.” Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. “What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to them.

“Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that- that- in fact, tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else.” “He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of any service to us.” Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties (meaning himself and mate), and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. “He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter. “Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to drink with the man I’ve diddled.

In fact, tell him I must go.” “He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for it’s so calm they won’t drift.” By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,- that having a long tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship’s side. While the Frenchman’s boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line. Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb’s whale.

Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat’s crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking anxious as gold-hunters. And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for a time.

“I have it, I have it,” cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, “a purse! a purse!” Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash color. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfulls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good-bye. SparkNotes: Moby-Dick: Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Limits of Knowledge As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to Moby Dick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of Moby Dick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.

The Deceptiveness of Fate In addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in prophecies, and some even claim the ability to foretell the future. A number of things suggest, however, that characters are actually deluding themselves when they think that they see the work of fate and that fate either doesn’t exist or is one of the many forces about which human beings can have no distinct knowledge. Ahab, for example, clearly exploits the sailors’ belief in fate to manipulate them into thinking that the quest for Moby Dick is their common destiny. Moreover, the prophesies of Fedallah and others seem to be undercut in Chapter 99, when various individuals interpret the doubloon in different ways, demonstrating that humans project what they want to see when they try to interpret signs and portents. The Exploitative Nature of Whaling At first glance, the Pequod seems like an island of equality and fellowship in the midst of a racist, hierarchically structured world.

The ship’s crew includes men from all corners of the globe and all races who seem to get along harmoniously. Ishmael is initially uneasy upon meeting Queequeg, but he quickly realizes that it is better to have a “sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” for a shipmate. Additionally, the conditions of work aboard the Pequod promote a certain kind of egalitarianism, since men are promoted and paid according to their skill. However, the work of whaling parallels the other exploitative activities—buffalo hunting, gold mining, unfair trade with indigenous peoples—that characterize American and European territorial expansion. Each of the Pequod’s mates, who are white, is entirely dependent on a nonwhite harpooner, and nonwhites perform most of the dirty or dangerous jobs aboard the ship. Flask actually stands on Daggoo, his African harpooner, in order to beat the other mates to a prize whale. Ahab is depicted as walking over the black youth Pip, who listens to Ahab’s pacing from below deck, and is thus reminded that his value as a slave is less than the value of a whale.

Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Whiteness Whiteness, to Ishmael, is horrible because it represents the unnatural and threatening: albinos, creatures that live in extreme and inhospitable environments, waves breaking against rocks. These examples reverse the traditional association of whiteness with purity. Whiteness conveys both a lack of meaning and an unreadable excess of meaning that confounds individuals. Moby Dick is the pinnacle of whiteness, and Melville’s characters cannot objectively understand the White Whale. Ahab, for instance, believes that Moby Dick represents evil, while Ishmael fails in his attempts to determine scientifically the whale’s fundamental nature. Surfaces and Depths Ishmael frequently bemoans the impossibility of examining anything in its entirety, noting that only the surfaces of objects and environments are available to the human observer. On a live whale, for example, only the outer layer presents itself; on a dead whale, it is impossible to determine what constitutes the whale’s skin, or which part—skeleton, blubber, head—offers the best understanding of the entire animal.

Moreover, as the whale swims, it hides much of its body underwater, away from the human gaze, and no one knows where it goes or what it does. The sea itself is the greatest frustration in this regard: its depths are mysterious and inaccessible to Ishmael. This motif represents the larger problem of the limitations of human knowledge. Humankind is not all-seeing; we can only observe, and thus only acquire knowledge about, that fraction of entities—both individuals and environments—to which we have access: surfaces. Symbols Ahab Ahab Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Long before Ahab's first appearance, there is an air of mystery about the captain of the Pequod. The owners hire the crew in Ahab's absence. When Ishmael inquires about the captain, he is told that Ahab is a man of few words but deep meaning; from the first, it is clear that the captain is a complicated character. He is a "grand, ungodly, god-like" man who has been in colleges as well as among the cannibals. This brief introduction reveals significant information. Ahab is ungodly in that he refuses to submit to any higher power.

He does not worship or even acknowledge the superiority of forces beyond himself. Ahab is god-like in that he is larger than life. Perhaps he even wants to be God. The mystery continues as Ahab remains in his cabin through the early days of the voyage. Ishmael grows increasingly uneasy, checking the area outside the captain's cabin whenever the narrator goes on watch. When Ahab finally appears on his quarter-deck (Chapter 28), he is an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over Ishmael. The captain looks like a man "cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness." A white scar, reportedly from a thunderbolt, runs down his face and, some say, the length of his body. Ahab does seem godlike, or at least mythic, from the beginning. He is surrounded by legend, cured by lightning, grim, determined. We learn early on that an equally legendary White Whale has bitten off one of the captain's legs. A prosthesis replaces it, fashioned from another sperm whale's jaw.

The man is thus part whale himself, part lightning bolt; he feels a thunderous electricity within himself. If Ahab is mad, he is madness personified, a huge man, larger than life, legendary, god-like. Ahab is a man of great depth but few words. When he speaks, others listen because he moves them with charismatic persuasion. In the pivotal Chapter 36, Ahab finally gathers the crewmen together and, in a rousing speech, solicits their support in a single purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing the White Whale. He first unifies the group by asking a series of emotionally charged questions that call for collective responses: What do you do when you spot a whale? What do you do next? What tune do you pull to in pursuit? The men are increasingly excited, as if they are in the blood lust of a real hunt. Ahab then employs his prop, a Spanish gold ounce, offering it to the lookout who first sees ("raises") the White Whale. The end of Ahab's oration unites all of the crewmen except for Starbuck in the monomaniacal goal of pursuing Moby Dick. Ahab's quest is grand, ungodly, and god-like.

Starbuck accuses the captain of blasphemy for seeking revenge against a "dumb brute . . . that simply smote thee from blindest instinct" (Chapter 36). For Ahab, blasphemy is no vice. He would "strike the sun if it insulted me." The captain wants to take on the structure of nature, even God himself. To him, Moby Dick is not just some dumb brute. The White Whale is a façade, a mask, behind which lurks the "inscrutable thing," the force that is Ahab's true enemy. Ahab is certain that the force is evil. Others find the evil in Ahab's ego, in his own soul. To understand Ahab, we must understand that it is this force behind the mask that Ahab really wants to kill. Ahab believes that the force wants to injure him, to limit his role in the world. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps the force is evil. Or perhaps Ahab is madness itself, striking out against the essential powers of the universe, which he cannot possibly defeat. In either case, his quest is bold and literally magnificent.

If Ahab is mad, as even he concedes that he is, it is a huge madness, containing multitudes. Part of the universal appeal of the book is that this is a madness to which many briefly aspire, from time to time, resisting our limited, petty roles in the universe. For most, it is just a fleeting yearning and clearly beyond our grasps. For Ahab, it is everything. We see a different side of Ahab the day before the Pequod's first encounter with the White Whale. Starbuck and the captain are at the rail in the sunshine and soft breezes. For the most part, Ahab is a static character, one who does not grow or change throughout the novel due to his single-minded obsession. But here he briefly wavers. Ahab recalls his forty years at sea, harpooning his first whale at age eighteen; finally marrying when he was past fifty; sailing for Cape Horn the next day. Of those forty years, he has not spent three ashore.

He calls himself a "fool." But when Starbuck tries to persuade him to turn back and go home, Ahab says he is no longer in control of his fate: "What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me?" This is the beginning of the greatest speech in the novel, near the end of Chapter 132, a soliloquy that should be read aloud to fully appreciate Ahab's character. Like the figure behind the mask of the White Whale, the force behind Ahab's motivation is also an inscrutable, dominating master. In his madness, perhaps Ahab is fighting evil or nature or God; or perhaps he is simply fighting Ahab. The captain is no stereotype and certainly is no ordinary man. He is a complicated, deep, tortured soul. Even though he knows he is mad, he cannot stop himself. Ahab contemplates the beauties as well as the horrors of life and death as he smells the sweet air blowing over the Pacific.

He muses that mowers have been making hay somewhere beneath the slopes of the Andes and are "sleeping among the new-mown hay." We all sleep at last, he thinks, sleep and "rust amid greenness." Or at the depths of the ocean. The final three days leave no time for contemplation as Ahab finally encounters Moby Dick. The captain's final defeat seems inevitable. Time and again, the White Whale out-maneuvers the crew of the Pequod, once even using the lines of the harpoons, which the men have lodged in the whale, to whiplash and smash their boats. Ahab's final attempt to kill his nemesis results in his own death as the hemp line of the captain's harpoon lodges around his own neck, casting him to his death in the sea.

Question: In 'Moby Dick', what was the name of the captain of the 'Pequod'?
Answer: 'AHAB'